It looks like you're trying to run a rail service. Do you want some help with that?The train now arriving on platform 14 is... Office? (pic: Rob Dyke) Window admins rejoice! It isn’t just you that can’t get Office 2010 to uninstall silently. The mighty brains behind the UK railways have had just as much trouble.As well as the usual passenger information boards, detailing the day's cancellations and delays, London’s Victoria train station also features displays on every platform showing the state of the lines around the building.Station staff, taking a break from stopping passengers boarding trains due to inexplicable...

When Apple introduced the new iPad Pro, the company boasted that its slim slate is more powerful than 92 percent of PCs out there. Now that we've benchmarked the 12.9-inch iPad Pro for our review over at Laptop Mag, it looks like that claim could very well be legit. Credit: Tom's Guide The 7-nanometer A12X Bionic chip processor inside the iPad Pro packs four performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and there's a new GPU that promises twice the graphics performance as the A10X processor inside the last iPad Pro. And the benchmark results are quite impressive. Geekbench 4 On...

NASA Hubble's designers prepared for gyroscope failure by equipping the observatory with a backup. Unfortunately, when one of Hubble's gyroscopes conked out in early October, the backup didn't work as expected -- it was rotating too fast and hence won't be able to hold the telescope in place when it needs to stay still and lock in on a target. NASA has since been able to reduce its rotation rates and fix its issues by implementing an age-old fix for malfunctioning electronics: turning it off and on again. Back to science! @NASAHubble is well on its way to normal...

But there's still a long way before Windows 7 can be laid to rest MICROSOFT could see Windows 10 finally catch up to evergreen Windows 7 by the new year if this months market share figures are anything to go by.The monthly numbers from Netmarketshare show 40.88 per cent of desktop users on Windows 7, with Windows 10 at 37.44 per cent, just 3.44 behind as we head into the busy period of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Santa's subsequent annual giveaway.Third place goes to the latest version ofÂ macOS, with version 10.13 on 6.08 per cent. Windows 8.1 is fourth...

When it was discovered earlier this month that the 1809 build of Windows 10 was deleting user files just because, Microsoft halted the update until the problem was fixed. Shame, then, that another not-as-bad-but-still-bad file overwriting bug has now reared its head. Over the weekend, several users on Reddit reported that Windows 10's in-built interface for compressed archive won't actually extract files properly. Instead, it just "fails silently", which is not something you want when it comes to data. Here's a concise explanation of the bug from user "Wazhai" on Reddit: The issue is that in 1809, overwriting files by...

Or at least uninstall some of the bits you really don't want Microsoft has announced that its customers will finally be able to remove more of the cruft that arrives with a Windows 10 installation. In 2019.While Slow and Release Preview ring Windows Insiders got to experience Redmond’s latest efforts to stabilise the troubled OS, Fast ring and Skippy testers got their hands on a fresh build of the 2019 version of Windows 10 (aka 19H1).Build 18262 has finally introduced the ability to uninstall some more of the preinstalled Windows 10 apps (also confusingly known as "inbox"), such as little-used...

Second Insider build with more fixes for 1809. Could third time be the charm? Microsoft’s efforts to recover from the Windows 10 October 2018 Update debacle continued last night as a fresh build of the troubled operating system was emitted to Windows Insiders.Build 17763.104 is the second release of the update to Insiders since the file-eating monster was unleashed on an unsuspecting public back on 2 October before being yanked back into its kennel.Microsoft reckoned it had fixed all the data loss issues in build 17763.17, which was released just over a week ago but clearly there was still some...

...Probably because Microsoft has accidentally disabled your audio Somebody got a little trigger happy with the big red Windows Update button last week as a broken Intel audio driver was unleashed on users “by mistake”.It has been a hellish couple of weeks for the Windows giant following the launch of the troubled October update for its flagship operating system. Not content with Display Audio issues, mysterious file deletions and borking HP computers thanks to a “known incompatibility” with drivers for an obscure bit of hardware (aka the “keyboard”), it seems audio is next in the firing line.Last week's Windows 10...

Day four exceeds all expectations as Microsoft steps back from brink Microsoft has taken the unprecedented step of pulling a Windows 10 release a mere four days after its arrival amid a clamour of users complaining about files not being where they had left them.Windows Insider supremo Dona Sarkar took to Twitter to announce that Windows fans would no longer be able to get their hands on the afflicted build. Redmond said the automatic rollout would also be paused until it works out just what in blue blazes is going on. #WindowsInsiders If you've run into the "missing files after...

Clicked Check For Updates? Welcome to the Release Preview ring Windows 10 October 2018 update is here, having skipped past the Release Preview phase, and can be downloaded now if you can’t wait for it to make an automatic appearance.Click to enlarge While many observers (us included) expected a release date for Windows 10 to be secreted among the hardware ejaculations during last night’s Surface announcement, having the thing actually smack users in the face like an octopus flung by a seal was unexpected.This is because the last build, 17763, had yet to make it from the Slow Ring, where...

Full Windows on new Qualcomm silicon at last IFA Microsoft's long journey away from Intel reached escape velocity this week, as the first traditional laptop machine with Qualcomm's Arm processor was revealed by Lenovo, in the shape of the Yoga C630 WOS."WOS" stands for "Windows on Snapdragon", how Qualcomm prefers to call "Windows on Arm", and since it's Qualcomm Inside, not Intel Inside, it gets to call the shots.This is the second "always connected" PC from Lenovo to run a Qualcomm chip, but the first to run the Snapdragon 850 processor. Officially announced last year, the Microsoft-Qualcomm alliance Always Connected...

My PC has been running slowly at times during the past several months. Some time ago, I thought I had done enough troubleshooting to conclude I needed more RAM, so I added 4GB and now have 8GB. However, the slowness continues. Now I see that when I am loading a new web page in my browser, or a web page update with new content, the CPU usage goes up to 70-90%, and that is when it slows for a while. I have tried using Waterfox (64-bit version of Firefox) and Edge with the same symptoms and results, so it isn't...

CCleaner has promised a slew of changes to its software in response to user criticism of active monitoring processes which are almost impossible to disable. More security news Windows 10 patch expert begs Microsoft: 'Please fix uptick in botched updates' Facebook CSO Alex Stamos departing, won't be replaced Reddit says hackers breached its systems, some user data compromised â€‹Spam is getting smarter and we're still falling for it CCleaner, available in both free and premium versions, is software which performs all-around scrubbing and optimization of Windows, Mac, and mobile devices. The Avast-owned software, available under Piriform, was the target of...

On September 30, 2014, Microsoft announced Windows 10, thus changing the firm's operating system as we know it. Windows was going to be serviced, rather than being refreshed every few years. We've learned since then that this means biannual feature updates, along with monthly (sometimes more often) cumulative updates. Indeed, Microsoft was done competing with itself with new versions of Windows. On July 29, 2015, Windows 10 launched, and it was promised that there would never be a Windows 11. Here we are, exactly three years later, when we would normally see the next version of Microsoft's flagship OS. Since...

[Dayglored's comment: As usual The Register has its sarcastic, barbed tongue deeply embedded in its cheek.] Absurd hardware requirements and compatibility problems aplenty. Sound familiar? Windows NT has hit an important milestone. Its launch is now closer to the first Moon landing than it is to today.With its debut in July 1993, Windows NT ushered in a gloriously pure 32-bit future, free of the 16-bit shackles of the past. While the majority of PCs at the time were running MS-DOS, often with Microsoft's Windows 3.1 perched precariously atop, like a giant lemon balanced on a peanut, the kernel-based NT represented...

Lower Saxony says 'auf wiedersehen, pinguin' The German state of Lower Saxony plans to follow Munich's example, and migrate a reported 13,000 users from Linux back to Windows. Apparently undaunted by the cost of the Munich switch (which we reported in January could be as much as €100m), Lower Saxony is considering making the change in its tax office. The state seems to expect a much cheaper transition, with Heise (in German here) reporting the first-year budget is €5.9m, and another €7m further out.The tax office argues its decision is driven by compatibility: field workers and teleworkers overwhelmingly use Windows,...

It's been three months and 16% have their heels firmly planted [Dayglored note: Ya gotta admit, The Register comes up with some really catchy pics.] The charge of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update continued into July with 84 per cent of lucky, lucky users seeing their desktops upgraded, according to AdDuplex.The rate at which the code was flung at PCs slowed a little, which was inevitable considering June's impressive (or alarming, depending on your point of view) 78 per cent penetration of the Windows 10 install-base.In the absence of official numbers from Microsoft (other than a cheery "it's going...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates discussed a meeting with President Trump in a recently unearthed video clip, playing up for the audience his opinions on Trump’s knowledge about medical science, among other things. In a clip aired by Chris Hayes on his MSNBC show All In, Microsoft founder Bill Gates discussed a meeting he had with President Trump while talking to staff members of his charity organization, the Gates Foundation. Gates stated that he met President Trump both before and after he was elected but began first by discussing a meeting he had with President Trump before he was elected.

[Microsoft] Claims it’s the least complaint-generating Windows ever Microsoft’s decided that Windows 10 version 1803, aka the April Update, is now fit for consumption by business users or indeed anyone or anything capable of running Windows 10.The company’s declared the updated OS is now “fully available for all compatible devices running Windows 10 worldwide”, including business PCs. Redmond’s advice comes after over 250 million users installed the OS and gave it a thrashing. Those efforts produced data that Microsoft said shows a twenty per “reduction in system stability issues” and the same reduction “in operating system and driver stability issues.”The...